Castletown Golf Club
A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS FOR SOUTER, THODAY AND EASTON
With rain rolling in from ‘High Noon’, early starters had the best of the weather at Castletown Golf Links on Saturday. This was reflected in suppressed scores and a poor completion rate for the fifth round of the Winter League. Only the winner proceeded to post par: 30 Stableford points for the shortened 15-hole course.
Club president Malcolm Lambert described his own performance as being, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ whilst his playing partners slugged it out, each grabbing, ‘A Fist Full of Dollars’.
Sharp-shooter, Greg ‘Clint’ Easton -above- went ‘For a Few Dollars More’ by demonstrating his resilience, dropping a 78cm bountiful birdie on the 13th to augment the NTP prize.
With a hesitant backswing and a putting stroke one blink away from a yip, Ian Souter (8) -shown above- clipped it close enough, often enough, to notch-up eight pars and seven bogeys. Despite missing three short shockers, Souter’s nifty nett birdies on the 2nd, 15th and, most crucially, the 18th, landed him the loot, plus he topped division two.
Had that final speculative putt not dropped, Souter’s former KWC schoolmate Francis Thoday (14) would have won.
With his characteristic steady style, Thoday -shown above- had established a two-point lead on 29 points with only the 18th to go. Anything less than his sinful seven would have done but Thoday had to settle for second and the division three award.
A posse of four followed, also on 29 points and, to determine Winter League placement points, needed to be separated based on their back-six scores. Colin C. Magee (6), Dan Laughlin (5), Brian Kelly (5) and Neil Cartwright (4) finished in that order although only Magee (second in Div:2) and Cartwright (Div:1) collected any reward money.
The two’s pot was split seven ways. Not amongst them was last week’s pairs competition winner Jonathan Potts even though he had a chance from 1.6m having bagged the box of balls for finishing NTP on the 16th.
William Laughlin still leads the Winter League with 53 placement points, and he also heads the nett eclectic on 62. Daniel Laughlin now lies second on 36 points thus demoting Nick Maybin to third with 31. Neil Harris (+1) and Martin Young share second spot in the nett eclectic with 63 and their gross scores of 62 and 63 respectively place them first and second in that sub-competition. Senior champion Sam Skelton occupies third place with his gross eclectic score of 65.
Wild weather wrecked plans for the mid-week and previous Sunday’s Stableford. Numerous players ventured out this Sunday (22nd), ten of whom supported the club-sponsored Stableford. Matt Ascroft’s lovely level par back-nine was worth 20 of his 29 points, taking the top prize. The other podium places went to Stuart Campbell and Tommy Doherty who also carded 29 points over the shortened course.
A Yellow Ball AM-AM Multiplier has been set to befuddle us this coming Saturday and golfers from across the island are reminded that via the ‘Golf Genius’ app or by clicking the link: https://www.golfgenius.com/pages/12202056772030055181 tee times are now available for the St. Patrick’s Day Open Scramble being played on Saturday 14th March. There are several tee times still available and singletons seeking partners can call Oli on 822211 and ask to be allocated.
MALCOLM LAMBERT
Created by intelligentgolf version 10.1.2.
